##VIDEO ID:Pc9MKqLA5yY## I don't blame you they have to come on e e good evening welcome to the opening of the September Trenton Board of Education board meeting would you please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance IED to the of the United States of America stand call Yolanda Lopez present Gerald truart present Jean buoy present Edie Daniel Lane Austin Edwards Denise Johnson s absent Jeanie weam present Larry trailer present we have a quarum the New Jersey Sunshine Law the New Jersey public meetings law was enacted to ensure the right to the public to have advanced notice up and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest is discussed or acted on on the rules of this act the Trenton Board of Education has caused notice of this meeting by publicizing the date time and place therefore posted on the web page the times and the Star Ledger formal action will take place at this meeting Our Miss statement is all students will graduate with a vision for their future motivated to learn continually and prepar to succeed in their choice of college or career I am going to ask for a motion to adopt the agenda with the following addendums on the public agenda a revised uh a presentation by our assistant superintendent on teaching and learning and also adding an executive session on the finance and Facilities we are requesting an addendum for staff travel on teaching and learning a resolution to approve anou with Mercer Street friends a resolution to collaborate with the Capital Area YMCA and a solution to approve child win at Trenton Central High School actually to pull from the teaching and learning recommendation the resolution to approve child win at Trenton Central High School on on the human Human Resources addendum we have new hires new hires were send salary adjustments transfer cpen appointments and we are asking to pull from new hires RT for further discussion we also have um a student interest resent we have the motion so moved second a roll call Yolanda Lopez yes Geral truart Jean Buie yes Denise Johnson yes Austin Edwards yes jeie weam yes Daniels Lane yes s man absent Larry trailer yes motion pass with amendments superintendent good evening and welcome everyone we're glad to see everyone out for the start of the school year uh it's been a very successful start um we have very few problems or we had a smooth opening and trans uh Transportation uh and we were able for the first time in a while to get uh most students registered and in a school hopefully in classrooms by now in within the first uh seven days of school which is you know pretty pretty good accomplishment compared to where we've been in years past so we're excited to have uh so many new faces uh in our district who could join us and we were so excited to improve the registration process so that students could get in um and into school and get started so right now we're still registering uh young people and families so we're welcoming new families uh welcoming those who are returning to the district and we have a number who returned so that's exciting uh but just to know that you know our students are here and we have a process in place that's moving everyone quicker than it did before and uh it's refreshing to make sure that families are welcomed when they get here and that we have processes in place when it's difficult um to do some of the registration components that they may not be used to so I want to thank our team and all of us for pitching in and all of you who had to stand in the lobby and on Saturdays and at different times to get young people registered um also o want to just recognize and ask uh if you will um this summer you know certainly we started school year with our hearts heavy because we didn't start with the people we left with um so we had students who did not return with us um due to passing and adults and so I just want to take a moment of silence to recognize uh those individuals who were not able uh to be with us as we return for the new school year thank you uh as as we celebrate um you know returning and the excitement about school and returning and the new activities and we're going to watch a performance uh shortly here if you join us uh we have to always remember uh who's not with us and so we want to keep our hearts and prayers um uh placed in the put in the right place uh to support those families who need it um so at this time uh we we're going to have a presentation shortly after this on access for El's data um that will take place but for the first time since I've been here we're going to have an outdoor presentation for any of you who want to join us as a part of our presentation we will be treated to the TCS tchs invisible F5 tornado marching band uh direct under the direction of uh Mr Ted plunket assistant directors and coaches Caesar Gonzalez Mr davidner isai Cortez and Mr Tom Hicks so if you will I'd like to take you on a quick Journey outside for a quick presentation and then join us back in here if you prefer to stay in you're welcome to stay here thank you e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e so I want to take this opportunity to thank you for joining us they were outstanding outside awesome so at this time we'll have uh Mrs sang uh for our presentation of access for El's data sorry um I just want to say for those who need the services we are happy to announce that we have um Spanish translation devices in the back if you need interpretation please feel free to go to the back someone will hand you a device so you can understand the meeting if you have a problem with the um translation can you hear me okay excellent okay it's gonna be really hard to follow the marching band the energy level is probably not going to match I'm going to try my hardest good evening board members um um superintendent I'm here tonight to present to you our annual mandatory assessment results um if you recall every year students are required to take standard assessments um in the areas of um language arts math science that's what you call New Jersey student learning assessment that comes at the end of the year um we also have Dynamic learning map which will be presented to you the results for next month um and today I'm here to present to you access from L's um that is the assessment that all of our multilingual English language Learners um take from February until April if they give up about two months of testing window I wonder if this is like is it am I too loud no okay I just feel like I'm echoing everywhere so tonight I will be presenting to you the results from 2324 school year um what we are mandated to do from the state department of New Jersey is to provide you with with aggregated data as well as disaggregated data we also are required to provide you with instructional interventions so if you have any questions um I will be asking you if you have any questions at the end I'm happy to um provide any responses that I can so here we go so 2023 24 school year access for El's you have students from kindergarten to um 12th grade taking the assessment so we have approximately th000 students in Trenton Public Schools who took the assessment and the achievement net levels um so the scores vary from it goes from zero um level one to level six six being the um highest just to give you a frame of reference 4.5 is the score that um determines students exit from an ESL program okay and if you recall even if students are exited from the ESL program we are required to monitor and support them and put in the support in place for two years okay this is like a lot of information so I'm going to just kind of break it down for you here we go so distribution by achievement level as you can see you see the yellow entering orange emerging uh a little brighter yellow I think um developing then you got green expanding um darker green bridging and blue reaching so you can sort of see where we are in K to 5 6 to 8 9 to 12 and all grades so if you look to the far right you can see majority of our students who took the access for L's are in the entering emerging and developing level um so just to give you a frame of reference Mr Earl talked about registration just um just a few moments ago so each year when we have the registration open in the spring um we have a lot of students enter um all year long but particularly in the months of January into April and then really from April all the way until September um we do have a lot of students who enter into our school system who have that language needs um it is important for us to note that typically um and historically we have been kind of accustomed to seeing Spanish being one of the leading language needs um our students are needing um we are now seeing AR rise of Haitian Creole we are also seeing um some Arabic languages as well as some Eastern European languages coming into our district I'm not to the point of where we need to talk about um waiver for bilingual education but we are almost getting up there okay so this is the distribution achievement by level and this is talking about subgroup race again per Mand uh mandated um item from the state so we do have um High Black and Hispanic students but multiple races is really kind of up there 80 percentile 85 percentile in the entering distribution by achievement level by subgroup gender okay and this is what we call longitudinal study so we we monitor students success multiple years so this one is the last three years 21 22 22 23 and 2324 school year so you can see that our students are kind of staying status quo right they're they're starting to kind of move up in certain areas one of the things that we're noticing although you wouldn't necessarily call this significant in terms of statistics it is significant for us right so when you look at the the right side you have 23 24 school year we do have students who are starting to get up there in the bridging now you're not going to see from a you know pool of 6,000 kids taking the assessments and most of them being brand new immigrants into the country who have very language very limited language acquisition skills come into the country in that first year go from emerging all the way up to reaching right but you are hopeful to see that there there is a gradual growth um which I will outline for you okay so at the elementary level is where we start to see that growth happening and we'll talk a little bit about what's happening in the elementary and intermediate levels that we may want to emulate in other grade levels this is the middle school and then the high school so the conclusion that we can draw from this is that majority of our students are at the very very beginning stage of language acquisition so then that means it calls for more of us well more for the focus to be had in how do we help our students a transition into the country because transitioning into the country is more than just language right it has to do with understanding the culture that is different understanding the way people interact that's another understanding the different languages that you might be exposed to different system different structure all of those things are things that we have to take into account when we talk about our students because after all our students aren't just coming in just that one robotic kind of like a box where we can standardize everything right everybody responds differently at different rate um the other conclusion that we can draw is that there might be some upward movements in some of our grade levels and we're going to kind of find out what that is and why and how that impacts us so this kind of gives you a little bit better um perspective in terms of like where we are so you look at the lighter shade that is 22 23 school year in the darker Shade that's 23 24 school year as you can see majority of the grade levels that you see 23 24 school year our stud students are doing better you didn't see it in the big big graph because there are a lot of students but when you start breaking it apart into grade level students are getting a little bit stronger right in particular I'd like for you to just take a look at the two grade levels that we see at the departmental level um that we um we're seeing success in that's grades four and five right so miss Herrera who's a supervisor of early um k6 Elementary um bilingual ESL who is also assisted in the secondary World particularly in the transitional areas to seven her and I started to talk a lot about like what so what is causing this kind of like an like sudden increase which we want to see what what is it h what's happening in those grade levels that perhaps other grade levels are not seeing right um let me see if I can and again we see this in the two years you got two grade levels performing so I'm going to kind of stay here so couple of things that we've been talking about so if you kind of travel back with me and this isn't going to take too long um so travel back with me four years ago when I joined this this District we talked a lot about bilingual program and a year into my journey here miss Herrera came to join and one of our major Focus points that we brought to the district was streamlining our programming and we started at the elementary level in particular we started to talk about what is dual language what are the program in and what do we need to do to make sure that there streamlining of services common understanding establishment of common vocabulary practices or approaches or interaction right so if you really think about that our fourth grade babies were in grade one at that time so as we engage more and more teachers who are in the situation of predicament of teaching multilingual Learners which really is everybody so we started with dual language but we expanded very quickly to shelter teachers that are general education teachers we expanded to ESL teachers we expanded to bilingual teachers or former known as bilingual teachers anybody and everybody who wanted to have that information right and we're we're moving even faster now just to catch up because we know that there is a greater need um still existing so our babies in fourth grade last year have gotten essentially first grade second grade and third grade cre of that consistent educational kind of experience right similar environment similar um approaches common language consistent resources and teaching so while we don't have that hard data at at our Po in our pockets to show you this is the reason we truly believe that that probably had a very big impact in terms of how our students performed and our fifth grade babies as well if you look at the mobility chart which I shared with you very quickly what you've seen for the last five minutes um hopefully five 10 minutes is looking at how our students are moving majority of our students are either remaining the same or moving up there are very little movement downward which is also a positive and promising kind of prospect that we have so let's talk about that intervention because you know I love talking about instruction intervention right data is good but data needs story and narratives to ACC company for us to understand so for the last few years we have really been focusing our and prioritizing our energy in terms of unpacking strategies instructional strategies so we know what we know about our students is that there are multiple programs that exist in even just k6 setting for example right there's there's lingual there's dual there is um ESL and there is sheltered and there's General there's a lot of different settings and depending on the availability of resources students one student who is marked Mar a multilingual can weave it and out of the program what do I mean by that I can come in as a kindergarten student and go into a dual program but maybe in first grade there aren't teachers or they may not have resources that will get me into another dual language program so that maybe I'm turned into a shelter or maybe I have ESL that's high intensity so these varied kind of Journeys make it challenging for our students to have consistency so part of the focus that we brought to the district is really thinking about well either way whever whichever environment that you're placed in you're going to have multiple teachers and multiple Educators come in out of the classroom so why don't we talk about what does teaching with another educator and what does co- teing look like in Trenton Public School specifically for our multilingual Learners so we've been really focusing on like pushing in um multiple Educators working with um students and what that looks like what models work and we we've been doing a lot of like demonstration lessons debriefing about those lessons and having conversations around that we've also been really highly encouraging and promoting push in ESL services what does that mean so you might have a general education teacher who has multiple languages that exist in the classroom um in the past students may be pulled out to get Services um from the classroom we're really encouraging teachers to push into that classroom setting so that the the students who are receiving ESL they're learning the grade level content or at least being exposed to it but they're learning it next to their peers who have higher English proficiency right so that actually is another change that we talk about we've also been really focusing on and you know I've been talking about this for the past four years right standing standing before you talking about just streamlining our understanding of dual language right what does dual language look like what are the different types of dual languages what um dual language immersion program rather and what do we have in our Tren Public Schools classroom and why is that model beneficial for our population and what are the non-negotiables meaning the must and what are the optionals right so we've not only been kind of focusing on um providing those professional development sessions for our Educators but also administrators as well so that we're all speaking the same language so this is an example of a slide that was shared during our most recent admin Retreat um that was all the administrators in our district but but this is actually pulled from one of the professional developments that was had during the summer for our teachers so we're getting the same level of training the same kind of quality of training um at the administrator level as teachers um the other piece is we're kind of helping each other practice how we describe our programming right so you've heard of elevator speech right I'm a big fan of that so if you only had 20 seconds 30 seconds to talk about your programming what would you h and what would you really push to promote our program to promote our schools and promote our students that in essence helps us to kind of summarize the big ideas and extract that important point to push back into the delivery and execution the practices this is another example of a training um sheltered instruction training so if you are not familiar with the term it's actually called sheltered English instruction it's for students who are coming who are multilingual who get placed in general education setting and the purpose of that education is providing students with scaffolds to accomplish or to achieve English proficiency so what we call Shelter instruction we call best practices in education because not just multilingual Learners all Learners could benefit from the strategies that we've um we've been learning as a group and we have expanded that professional development in the past it used to be just go online and you get your hours and you check in it's 15 hours minimum requirement um we have brought that professional development into the school settings into the district and then further had um presenters come out observe the classrooms and um and provide feedback and and and help us really kind of establish goals that are common and um really kind of tackle the targeted areas um collectively this is an example of ESL um initiatives and expectations similarly to the sheltered instruction dual Language by langual teachers ESL teachers also receive training and I will say that there are a lot of training opportunities that we have provided because we believe and I will say that I believe that if unless you have that Foundation right foundation of everybody understands what is the most important thing about educating our students particularly if they are multilingual right we all have the same understanding of where our students are coming from meaning what is their prerequisite data that they're telling us right so access for L's has multiple categories that assesses students ability in terms of English proficiency speaking listening writing reading amongst them all what is our priority area for our district it is speaking right so we know that we have to tailor amongst all of these professional development speaking giving to students opportunity to talk to each other peerto peer adult to peer peer to adult all of these opportunities have to happen on a regular basis in the classroom so those are the focal points um this year in the summer we typically get professional development and teachers um graciously come out during their vacation um to come to to learn to interact um I am hearing that we had about 150 teachers who came out during the summer to learn about this so so we have motivation we have the drive lots of great momentum on the other end administratively we're supporting the teaching and then keeping that accountability piece in place during the school year by talking about okay these are the things that we learned and we all collectively sat together to agree on these are the things that we're going to focus us on let's put them down and we're going to call them look fors so what we do is we share these look force not only with teachers but building administrators and even myself or other Central administrators who are going in and out of the classrooms so that we're all on the same page in terms of what we're looking for and when we give feedback it's the the standard language that we use right so that's also a very important component sorry Denis I think I pressed the wrong button oh good last this is my last slide um just talking about further interventions that we put in place so I've been talking a lot about Foundation right foundation is really important because it kind of deter where we're going to go right and how do we get there and how long we're going to take to get there we've done so much work in terms of helping the multilingual classrooms kind of be in that streamlined space um some of the um many of the initiatives are listed there but one of the things that I'd like to highlight and and I know um Miss Mora Lopez we've been talking about this um we're very proud of the work that we were able to complete with teachers um in Public Schools we took our English specific curriculum and we made them into Spanish curriculum meaning it's not just a translation we found authentic text not just like pushing Amazon and and loading them up we have vetted every single text that is in front that goes in front of our students in in their hands in front of the teachers we have aligned all of the standards and then realigned them because they revised them this year and gave us less than a year to align uh realign them in with the standards we have provided specific materials for students who are in that dual language setting or bilingual setting because when we talk about dual and bilingual we're not just talking about hey you got to learn English we're talking about no keep your native language and we're going to help you further that and then we're going to help you acquire a new language that is significant amount of work right and so big kudos to all the Educators who came out and learned alongside us and contined to want that learning to take place in their classroom and also the administrative staff who've really been like pushing to to be alongside the Educators and the administrators and we've been doing a lot of modeling um I know for a fact that their supervisor of Elementary bilingual ESL um education she has gone into multiple class to model the classroom um practices instructional practices and allow the teachers to kind of like take it apart what went well what didn't go so what really didn't go well right and to have real conversations about okay so what did you learn from that how can we plan for our instructional space to emulate or not emulate what we just saw so those all kind of collectively contribute we believe to the the slow kind of increase that we're starting to see we're hopeful this year we're going to see a little bit more of an increase in our assessment results and access for L's but all across um again we're not going to see like a significant night and day kind of situation but we are seeing um less students going downward they are staying or going up so that is something that we were very pleased to see um just looking at our data for the past four years so that's my presentation if you have any questions I will take them I have a couple questions um can we get a copy of this presentation I'm not sure if it was in the okay y absolutely very nicely done thank you so much um I have another question uh so the students who are coming in when you test them initially do you actually track them as they move or or are you simply um testing all those students who whose um primary language is not English so everybody who comes into the district any District across um the state must be screened we call home language survey so it's a really quick well quick um somewhat language survey that determines whether your home language is English or something else um after that if your score qualifies for further screening we invite the student or students back to the offices where they are screened um a certified ESL teacher must screen and assess um the students and determine their ESL level ESL levels one two three and four um from there they're placed into the programming and you know the teacher has obvious like progress monitoring process and at the end of each year we identify let's say um you know you got little Johnny who is is level two took access for else how did he do in all of the other five domains and where will we place them next year would he stay in two will he go up to three or will he be exiting because he did so well so that process takes place every single year for all of our multilingual students and and I apologize you may have mentioned this already no problem how do you determine whether or not they're in the Dual language or bilingual like sure yeah so a lot of the really varies it's dependent on obviously the resources that are available to us but uh right now our dual language program is being had in five locations at the elementary level we started in kindergarten and each year we raised a Grace we're at grade three now so the conversation that we're having is about the transition from grade three to four because once we get to four five and six we're really talking about that elevated you know Spanish language art specifically math in bilingual Spanish specifically so we do have some decisions to make there but um dual language is voluntary am I I'm squeaking I'm squeaking um dual language is voluntary um we do a presentation um each spring and summer parents um sign their students up or if they are in like a really low multilingual level we do recommend that they are placed in dual language because because they will have that support and then as they move up it really depends on the availability of resources so if there are bilingual certified teachers they would be going into bilingual classrooms if not sheltered instruction okay thank you y great so so well done you know one I was gonna have a question right yes so so I think um sister Denise asked one piece of my question because when you the CH as they come in in I think you said January through April so their skill levels are at the bottom that does affect the aggregate numbers that we see right and then the the next thing is kind of like that differentiated what you just described that that folks get what they need at the level that they're at so what's going to happen to those folks who going for how do you compensate for that to address that like moving forward so I will say that we usually see a huge hike in terms of um numbers of students who are registering for the first time right around January until April only because when we're talking about North American and South American countries I think their academic beh year ends around that time so that's one of the reasons why they're coming right after the school year is done or if they have not gone into school then they would be coming around that time or else else time so yes they do contribute um there is a waiver for the state testing for not access rails about njsla um a for um the end of the year for students who have been in this country for less than a year so just to give you that perspective um it is just to be honest it's a real challenge it's a challenge to think about the grade three students and if they are big and we only have let's say a small pool of resources that can to their their needs it's it's been quite a bit of a challenge um one of the reasons why we've been really promoting in class like push in model is so that we can really try to get to as many students as possible right um we also are trying to look at different ways like sheltered instruction we're talking about English acquisition it's not an ideal scenario but if you don't have resources that's sort of like what we can offer so we're constantly looking for state approved because we do have to make sure that whatever program we provide our students is state approved um and we're checking and we're calling the state representatives to have questions and conversations around it we do the best we can but I will say that we're unfortunately not the only District across the state experiencing this especially a big districts who happen to welcome a lot of refugee population a lot of immigrant population we're all collectively struggling to find teachers um certifications programming because we don't want nobody wants to see a gigantic classroom because that's not conducive to learning right so every year there's something new and we try to get to it as best we can last yes thank you for the great presentation thank you I just wanted to have a couple of things to share ask for form of a question that I gleaned from your presentation one you mentioned two challenges that I gan in your presentation one um is that with the access 2.0 test for El um the majority of our students maybe 50% or higher of those students are at the entering or beginning level um and some of the other challenges that the state has also asked us to adopt a new learning standard in addition to um testing in the access for students for E students so those are two challenges that we Face uh this year year yeah right they keep changing um and then you you also I gan from your presentation that you showed us in your charts that many of our students are showing growth in the fourth and fifth grade yep because of the work that's been done over the last three years yes so as that work continues uh as we glean next year presentation we should see fifth sixth seventh well maybe not that high but more grades more the upper grades as those students matriculate through our curriculum and through our district those to continue to rise up in terms of students going up to higher levels in the access um Paradigm if you if you will or pyramid if you will yeah I mean we're really hopeful with that um one of the things that we're really um you know strong on is that we we're standing our ground on is we we have to expose our students to grade level right no matter like the disabilities or difficulties or challenges the students may bring they have to be exposed to grade level right so um we're hopeful that what we see in four and five will continue to be shown in six and seven and also three and two right so um we are we are running every day to try to make that happen that one final question sure um some of the some of the actions that you're taking thatan from your presentation that you're taking to address the challenges is continue you're contining to deploy resources in the area of professional development as well as curriculum development implementation so those are the two key areas yes that you continue to drive re and put more resources into and budget resources into to support the students and teachers and Professionals in the area so that we can continue this growth yes um yeah I mean we have to we have to right so first saying that we we have to get better we can't just stop with everything and just kind of maintain the status quo and say why aren't you getting better right we ourselves have to continue to grow and whether that be through resources whether that be through curriculum whether that be just us kind of having that um connection with staff and teachers and students um whichever is is being called at that moment we're we're willing to do um resources will continue we we continue to uh make that commit towards making sure that there are resources in the classrooms and students are able to have that tangible so the books rip no problem we will we will continue to purchase books and consume approvals that will help our students feel those books and and touch the books and read the books and experience those um texts and we're talking Early Elementary of course as an example um you done with yours no go ahead no I appreciate that uh thank you for the presentation this is my um first year sitting through this so definitely was very insightful um I loved I think one of my favorite Parts is when you was talking about the authentic learning material you know that's something that I'm you know very interested in and very passionate about so I think it's really great that to hear that you know there's an intentionality and a focus to make sure that the material that students are engaging with is effctive of you know something that they can relate to absolutely in their own lived experience but also was able to enrich them and expand their learning um I just had one question because um especially around the nurturing and developing of the program especially when it comes to recruiting teachers I wanted to know a little bit more about I know we talked about pushing in and making sure that we have the resources and the supports for those students inside of the classroom could you talk a little bit more about that in the context of um training and developing recruiting teachers for that because you can only I can only imagine we have a shortage of teachers who are bilingual bilingual certified and trying to figure out what does that you know look like yeah I mean to be honest that's also been a real challenge right because we have increased number of needs and then we we have either the same number of resources or we might have decreasing number of resources right depending on the situation so one of the things that we really talked about is ESL classro being had in the classroom alongside the Home Room teacher so there's co- teing happening gen teacher is exposing students to maybe a grade level while the ESL teacher is providing language acquisition or accommodation and vice versa we also have been encouraging ESL teachers to hey like you you you know the grade level stuff so it'd be great for students to see you in front of the classroom while J teacher is um doing you know accommodations so it's a true partnership now are we 100% there yet no not yet we've just started the journey but that's something that we've really been kind of focusing on and um the coaching and the demonstration lessons and also debriefing conversations around it has been really focused on that for um especially the ESL team um in terms of dual language and bilingual things have been really just the material and trying to emulate another classroom because there's a partnership all of that is really challenge um and not because it's here it's everywhere every school that I have been to with dual language partnership it's challenge because you've got now two classrooms having to mirror each other in everything they do and they're switching classes and the students are there and they were talking about kindergarteners who may not even know where their backpacks are in the first week of school right so we've been really trying to get into those settings um and support and provide feedback and and and be there to model and the resources and are we perfect probably not um we're we're learning as we go as well because the need here is just really great um but those are the things that we've been working on and we continue to find ways to bring resources into the classroom so that you know when you hear from the same person over and over again you're just like all right I don't want to hear it from you know so you have different kind of faces talking the same language and speaking like you know going the same direction um so we're trying absolutely and I have a followup question on um elll and bilingual programming I know that you know you talked a little bit about in the beginning of the year there's a strong recommendation for parents to get involved especially depending on where the student scals at y um what is the process to update and inform parents as their learning progress goes yeah so I'm just going to quickly go back um just so that you have a frame of reference there are multiple framework or structure that we could be using for dual language we have selected uh a oneway and two-way meaning the population of students when it's two-way they're speaking not just one link that's outside of English it's English and another language right um the difficulty with with that is that we have such high student population that have Spanish specific language needs that's turning ultimately into a one-way dual language program and the promotion really has been Flyers going out um conversations happening meetings for after school if you're ever here during the Spring months there there usually is a parent Community conversations throughout dual language um calling parents during um from our bilingual office when they come in and they register and they screen in our office we are obligated and mandated to provide them with this is what your child scored and therefore they qualify for this program program parents if they are are going to deny it they have to put it in writing otherwise a student goes into that program so that's another kind of process that we take as well okay and is there any followup after that like let's say the student does a first year and you re-evaluate okay where they at um learning levelwise um do you reach back out to the parents and give them update um in some cases yeah most of the communications really had at the school level at that point because school is watching and the teachers working really intimately with the student in terms of their progress but we do have conversation in terms of collective data analyses at the central office level because access for else gets released um in the summertime so we have that data we have to kind of analyze it to be able to identify how many kids moved up how many kids moved down and then we give that information to the um the technology and Innovation department so that that goes into power school and then the building gets it so it is a process that we engage in um if there are cases where students don't like it just doesn't look like it's a good fit and they're struggling and the mom is saying no no no no no like what the parents doesn't want the program they don't they they don't go get the program right but if there is like a I don't know what do you think we definitely do get involved and we visit the classrooms we conversation multiple times because that one visit shouldn't determine right the pathway of that child okay and I guess one final one and then no because this is you know this is important and this is also you know um some of my first time dealing with this so I got a few questions but um what is the difference between our dual language program versus some of our other uh support service programs for um students who are bilingual or multilanguage Learners yeah so dual language program and bilingual program are the only two programs that promote both language Acquisitions so your native language and English language together they're they're they're improving right dual language is really talking about a 50/50 model that we adopted in this District right so 50% of the time they're get in dual language they're in Spanish world and English world if we had another language like French Creole that that would be the other language other than English right um bilingual is very similar to that um um bilingual education is not necessarily having a partner dual language partner bilingual is perhaps in one classroom I am using 5050 model in one classroom because I am a bilingual certified teacher sheltered instruction and ESL are two programs that promote English acquisition only which is why the state doesn't want to see a whole lot of just sheltered instruction right because they want the students to retain their native language but it's been a challenge all across the state um I know that because I hear everyone talk about it and I also talk about it so sheltered instruction is with an English teach english- speaking teacher who is not certified to be bilingual and they are using different strategies to help student who are is non- english- speaking or limited learn ESL is very similar where they're using that but they are not assigned to that teacher as a home room they come in and out of the classroom 60 60 Minutes like equivalent to a class period per day high intensity would be 90 minutes okay any other questions um I first want to start off uh saying uh really kudos to the work um that you guys are providing I'd love to hear the fact that um you know the specific book language support right where you're going through and finding um I guess all this material in the language and you know in a way that specifically you know people can understand and also really enjoy the ad uh the idea here that you know speaking in classrooms right should be promoted as well because that's a great way of acquiring a language absolutely um I only got 12 questions so you know bear with me if you go back to the uh if you could go back to the slide on collaboration that's what really you know got most of my attention yeah that one perfect yeah um because I really like the idea specifically of C- teing right it seems like that's something that we're trying to push towards right because I think you know in doing different readings and stuff like that and coming to schools I've seen a few push in models right but you know co- teing is spectacular but can can you give us more you know I might be Visual and I just need to picture in my head uh what does co- teing look like like you know like ground level you got you know 12 kids in a room right you know how how does that work yeah I mean just to kind of briefly and I invite you you have further questions I'm more than happy to kind of show you the text as well um right now miss Herrera is like bagging books in her office so if you walk by her office she's got mounds of books coming and you know she's bagging them and delivering them um herself so like an example of an ESL Cod teaching model that we seek to accomplish or we seek to see in the classroom is so you have 25 students maybe six of them are ESL so ESL teacher comes in pushes in right and I'm doing lesson so one day I might teach a whole group instruction while the ESL teacher is walking around during my whole group just making sure that her ESL students but also others right but her ESL students are understanding what I am saying up here right um next day we might say hey we're gonna go into small group so we did a whole whole group lesson we're gonna pull them into small group you take the ESL students level one I will take the next group of eso students level two and then we're going to switch and at the end of of today we're going to compare notes to see what did you see what did I see what do I need to do how do I need to help them and where do I need to go because USL teachers may not be there in every single day at the same exact time so as a as a classroom teacher I might be alone and I have to now address right when they're not here so it's about exchanging of ideas strategies but also seeing how our students progress and exchanging notes and having like that thought partner and then being able to kind of interchangeably like kind of exchange roles as a Lead Teacher and a support teacher to be able to support our students where their needs are that's like the general kind of description of what we seek to see okay um my next four questions right you're going to be kind of about the same but um I think you highlighted one thing and you know this this may be me um but you were mentioning something along the lines of right these students are ingrained in the classroom to the point where they're also working with with other students who are native English speakers right is is that part of the formula too because you know yeah I mean so it doesn't always happen that way because we just have sometimes like a very like kind of like concentrated number of students who are just all English language needs right but to the best of our ability we we try to make that heterogeneous as much as possible because we know that if I am not speaking the language but I'm like next to you or I'm watching American TV shows and English TV shows I'm GNA be able to pick up something right in addition to the targeted kind of exercises that I engage in as a result of me being in that specific program so that is beneficial um as I said sometimes it's challenging because you might have one school that has 95% of the students who are multilingual so that means that majority of the students who make up let's say 23 22 students body it's G to be all M multilingual and most of the time that happens to be Spanish so students may be speaking in Spanish while the teacher is trying to teach them English so you know sometimes it doesn't work out but we try we aim for that yes um and along that lines uh are there any supports for our teachers right I'm thinking along the lines of do we offer right any stiens or classes so they might be you know become bilingual certified or you learn Spanish French Creole as you were saying is uh becoming a language are we are we offering those services for our teachers so we have we have partner with TCNJ for example where they hold classes there are Pathways for ESL Certification and bilingual certification um just to be honest I'm not as intimately involved in that process usually um the supervisor coordinates with Miss Kane and HR to bring the third party because it is a third party program but yes we do encourage teachers to in the program we also had waiver for a number of years from the state not just Trenton but across the state for teachers who may not be bilingual certified yet but was were on route to getting it they could be in the classroom um for a temporary time okay gotcha and um I think we're rounding the curve I'm like I question she not uh for these um students right that are ESL right outside of specific instruction do we have any cultural supports for them like you know are we working with any Community Partners I know we have you know and this is literally just you know Hispanic Latino Community right um it's not just you know we're all just speaking Spanish right it's like all right you know the Ecuadorian population is different from the GU yeah right right it's not just all the you know the king Spanish if I may right and that might help with integration do do we have any cultural Sports yeah I mean our teachers do phal job they they are really the the the warmth um when students are kind of hesitant to come into the classroom because of the barriers that they might feel um I was just visiting some of the preschool sites today for example and many of those sites have teachers who are bilingual and they're they're just bringing students on and if they can't communicate through the language that they can they're physically showing them and they're playing with them they're getting on the ground and that's no different what I've seen in the upper grade levels um you know we do what we can to help a student feel safe and feel like they belong and they're welcome here um and in addition to that many of the schools participate in in cultural activities and assemblies um you see you will see like 150 items under teaching and learning this month um many of them are dealing with their social and emotional and character building um for those purposes okay cool yeah uh just last point because I think that's amazing I think um because we have you know multiple Community groups right that you know I think a lot of times are like we'd love to interact with kids X Y and Z I just did an event with the uh Trenton Puerto Rican Foundation um and I know like we have a Ecuadorian Foundation right gu like we have these different you know cultural groups and Community groups that probably are willing to work with us that might just be something to explore as well absolutely we'll take note of that thank you thank you anyone else okay I I'll start with the duel I was going to leave The Duel at last but I just want to emphasize that what's great about the duel program if we do it correctly is that it's not just about uh Spanish speaking children learning English it's about English speaking children learning Spanish when it's a Spanish English classroom and that is one of the things that I think that we really need to emphasize when we do have these dual classrooms to make sure that we really do have childrens that that do not know any Spanish so they can learn the Spanish the same way we have children not knowing English learning the English uh the other question is why have we not not been able to offer a French C Creo um dual classroom because we do have a good amount of students that are French Creole um and I'll just and um this did we create one for this year at this you know did we open up another classroom and how many classes do we have so you can all know sure so in order for us to create a bilingual program we need to have 20 or more students speaking the same language within the geographical region so today we have not reached that point any other languages um we might have concentrated number of students but you need to have that mandate that kind of requirement now I will say that we're reaching it so that's number one that is the reason why we create and we know that it's the best thing right the second piece of this is it's incredibly difficult to find teachers who are bilingual certified period um especially because we have a lot of challenges in the state of New Jersey for example we can't hire teachers outside of the state residency law we also have very small number of teachers who have P who have obtained that certification by passing really rigorous series of tests and then you've got what is 600 districts 500 districts all pulling from that right so it's been a challenge um to be able to kind of like conceptualize dual language program for other languages but it's definitely not a limitation it's we're not shutting the door on it we are keeping an eye on the number of languages and and looking at bilingual programming if very least um for the waiver to be submitted to the state because we know once we hit that number we have to go out for either a waiver or we have to um position a bilingual program okay and I did want to say it is a little disappointing to know that there's always the possibility that a child starts in a dual classroom and then the following year not continue that du classroom yeah um having said that um I do love I've always loved the idea of integrated learning um I think it's really important that they not be just pulled out but that they learn together yeah and so um I am grateful to all the teachers that have gone the extra mile and and have received the sheltered um sheltered English instruction that's really that's really great because we're seeing the results we have general education teachers looking to get shelter training and we see the results because we're not going below the learning that they've had so far and from here that just means that we're going to continue going upward so I see that as a great positive and I thank all those teach teachers that have decided to go and and you know what and I really love it that it's in the building and it's not online because it's not the same learning a language even learning things is just you just learn it better when you have people around you doing the same thing um also the I am happy to have heard from the beginning that we are now on the same page in as far as an exit from the bilingual program um I think it's important that um especially the younger children when they come in they you know that we teach them the English that they continue learning their Spanish but there has to come a time where they have to leave the program and be integrated into regular classrooms so absolutely that that's you know that was really great I think that was our first conversation ever my first question to you here from from the podium um I'm used to being here yeah and so the other thing I wanted to ask um you size fourth and fifth grade yes but what about the Kinder can we see the Kinder uh the uh Kinder in into first they there was the other there was another the one before this one here yep so the so you see a hike in let's say ninth grade is another significant grade level kindergarten first kindgarten right because we didn't say anything about them that's showing growth too right right right what I've highlighted are the kind of like highlights of what we see yeah we see improvements in every grade level right over the course of two years um and the only reason I'm asking is because I did not have the benefit of bilingual education I was born and raised in the Bronx in New York but I remember when I went into kindergarten just like looking around because I did not understand a word of what the teacher was saying however I do know that when first grade started I understood so again integrated learning is really is really good I guess also kind of an immersion learning uh is great but having that um that support from the bilingual teachers having that support from sheltered instruction is really great because there are things that we I never understood for for example in Puerto Rican Cuisine when I was growing up we did not eat radishes so you show me a picture of a radish I you know in in uh in kindergarten you're ask what these things are and you're gred on that never knew what a radish was so just just an example as that I'm really happy that cultural things are also being absolutely yes integrated into it um great information thank you so much thank you and Larry you can never ask too many questions it doesn't matter if it's the first time uh that's what we're here for to ask questions until we are satisfied that we understand and this was a great one everything was clear thank you very much absolutely okay thank you okay okay so now in response to public participation from the August 19th e e e e e e e e uh the following schools are getting new HVAC rooftop units installed uh hedge paath done and Mite um the commissary Warehouse garage project the demolition uh has gone out to bid and that pretty much sums up what we went over for the week Genie all the schools are receiving or getting new and updated playgrounds right for the children some of them already have them but these are the ones on the priority for now but I believe the ones I don't have but the other ones will also receive updates receive yeah upgrades yeah upgrades thank you yes okay uh Addie curriculum so um good evening the um curriculum committee um did in fact meet on um Tuesday September the 17th and at that that time we reviewed um proposed curriculum uh related proposals and resolutions some of the highlights that we looked at were um curriculum revisions that were being made based on new standards um we took a look at novice teacher training uh programs being put in place um dual enrollment opportunities that expands over to uh Capitol City High School and to the nth grade academy we also again some of the highlights were a focus on arts and culture um integration um athletic expansion looking toward exploring lacrosse as a sport um there was an abundance of professional development uh opportunities for staff there was a focus on the environment and um natural uh resources and Reserve um nature reserves areas there was also um proposals related to community organizations and Partnerships um with various fraternities sororities and um colleges um we also took a look at an abundance of um student study trips and uh one of the questions that we discuss is how do we make sure that um students from all schools are given the opportunity to extend their learning um beyond the um classroom uh we also talked a little bit about um special education update in terms of the fact that the numbers are increasing the department is keeping an eye on the um numbers of uh students so that we can ensure that there enough uh classrooms and resources to um accommodate the students and their needs um we also talked about the availability of related services and the fact that we do have staff members for OT PT um excuse me occupational therapy Physical Therapy speech um Behavior Analysis excuse me Behavior analysts as well as clinicians so that was our update in terms of special education and again um the highlights from the curriculum proposals yes ma'am thank you uh during our meeting on uh Tuesday day we um briefly discussed um the implications of the relationship with the Trenton Housing Authority considering the original project was 50 millions and they received 15 million um looking forward to hearing what the superintendent um gets from the executive director um the end of this month Esser funds will be Filly exhausted and so there's no more exer money um and we reviewed the secretary's report treasurer's report and if you reviewed um this meeting's agenda you'll see that there are requests for three requests for proposals um to provide systems focused mental health counseling School based use Services um also to provide child care and transportation services and then one for also to provide professional development coaching for Visual and Performing Arts I make that announcement because we have a lot of people who watch our meetings and so if that's the business that you're in give you the opportunity to submit a proposal we also um on a second big fingers uh we reviewed the bill list 53 m462 230 for August 15th August 30th and September 13th and then the list of uh donations um which is rather lengthy and I think that's because we just opened schools but I'll I'll uh give a shout out to all the organization Kids in Need Foundation $500 um the department was Joyce Kilmer Intermediate School Britney Thomas $600 Joyce Kilmer intermediate schools life collected LL l c $450 to Joyce Kilmer foundation for the poor 550 back backpacks totaling $8,250 family and Community engagement shine and Inspire toiletries and miscellaneous out um items a value of $1,250 to family and Community engagement home front 200 backpacks um $33,000 family and Community engagement Bayada school supplies $1,000 family and Community engagement c4a local 1040 50 backpacks and school supplies $1,500 family and Community engagement New Jersey Department of the treasury school supplies $1,000 um family and Community engagement Etna $2,000 check family and Community engagement New Jersey um state New Jersey museum school supplies 1,000 to family and Community engagement women who move Mercers school supplies sneakers and socks $1,500 family and Community engagement and ttn two 100 book packs book packs with uh supplies $2,000 to family and Community engagement and we greatly appreciate the charitable donations of these um organizations thank you Joe yes good good afternoon good evening board members uh we also had a pic commun engagement School support meeting on September the 10th of 2024 and we really talked about how we are planning to communicate and share and interact and engage with our families this year in 2425 of course the great success with the back to school Extravaganza this ninth ninth year going into the 10th year next year which will be a big year for us a 10e a decade of of extravagances and actually uh after speaking to Denise I learned that actually was many many years prior to that we just start accounting 10 years ago but she was having uh extravagances even prior to the ninth year this year so that's great great work um so we had thousands of families come out um to the engagement we distributed about 8,000 resources to all the attendees who were there special thanks to our major sponsors you mentioned some of them in your report Jean ARA Mark Ed The Better Health New Jersey Horizon Shine the Spire Tahoe oncology oncology Inc Char Catholic Charities um all their support and others all their support made the extravagan a success the theme for this year was rolling into the 50s um so I I did see some pictures I was actually away during the extravagance so I did not have opportunity to attend but I saw the pictures of all the great teachers and administrators and students and board members having a great time P extravagan superintendent caught you too man so um great time in festivities and getting our our school year started kicking that school year off for to a great start and an excellent start so it was um well attended and Jefferson School was the winner of the table contest so kudos to uh Jefferson School they did a great job one of the things that we talked about also was some upcoming programs for and initiatives with parents uh building your child's emotional backpack uh it's going to run this fall all the way through March of 2025 at all of our school locations and it's a workshop that that educates parents on how stress impacts the brain body and Child Development so it's really something that know Dr C shanning Conway is is ushering and pushing and wanted to give make sure gets out to all the people so I make sure I made that announcement today uh check our calendars check our website for more information uh parents you should be receiving information from uh your school leaders um it's going to be in all of our schools through again through March 25th and you'll learn what's up with my child's Behavior the impact of stress on you the parent important the impact of stress on children the importance of self-care tips to regulate yourself and your child this is all a part of healthy heart series of course Trent public schools and Parent Connect uh the other event uh that is coming up this year working on is your child's missing school is your child missing school often learn about chronic absenteeism which is so very important in our community we need our kids to come to school October 15th it's a Tuesday Series October 15th 19th and 17th sponsored by laundry Depot uh you can have an opportunity to get gift cards and discounts available to the attendees of course Trenton Public Schools parent can and Catholic Charities dasis of Trenton New Jersey for uh for us I believe that's what it represents New Jersey for us Das of Trenton so those are two of the great upcoming programming and uh initiatives that we have through the community commun engagement School support department and division within Trent Public Schools under our leadership of our superintendent uh Denise cre and so those are two opportunities that we want to share is more coming I want to share that with you as well uh there was also a community Forum on Saturday September 21st I was not able to attend that Forum but I believe many of our board members attended that that form around school safety a focus group in town a a uh Town Hall around school safety I believe was very well attended many of our RTC color color guards army army RTC color guards attended that event and participated in that event and as my conversation with uh Joyce kiry this just today we will receive a report with some of the outcomes and deliverables and things that they have ascertained from their research and surveys to help us with the work that we have around School Safety and Security so I want to that end my report there thank you also have policy one more thing policy I apologize policy we did not meet policy did not meet this this month because we had a conflict we actually had a a school Merc County school board meeting uh this month that I attended so we did we cancel our policy meeting but the work continues we have on the agenda tonight a second reading of our remote access for board members policy for our second reading that will make it official uh we continue to work around our regulations I'm getting those out for first and second reading re revisions or updates to those policies so look for more board members look for more reading uh for your pleasure in your homework coming up for our October board meeting then a second reading in November Mr Mr Mr Ro of course uh leading that charge for us as part of administration since our superintendent as well and all of our board members on all those committees so thank you so much all right now for the HR report I'm going to uh keep fairly short uh I think I'm the last report up this time um but yeah we have a lot of uh different hirings that are coming in uh some of the the standard stuff but uh what I did want to do is direct everyone to item J if I'm not mistaken I just wanted to highlight the uh resignation send area because we got one good name Mr James roll Esquire who be with us you're stuck with us brother you're stuck with us all right just want just wanted to highlight glad that uh you'll still be serving with us in the district all right but uh um other than that yeah um some of the normal stuff and we'll make sure that uh all all the job postings anything that comes up in the district uh that we post to our Facebook we post to our website um and uh I'll post to my personal socials as well but uh just wanted to highlight you know the great work of our general councel coming back another year thank you I just want to say that the governance committee did not meet this uh this month however well I'm sorry we did meet we the second meeting did not take place so I want to speak on the second meeting that did not take place I was able to meet with superintendant Earl and with Council uh James Ro and I'm really excited and happy to to say that we will be working on empowering our students student board member representative um we were speaking on policy that we're going to be sending to the policy policy committee to look over in as far as the election of our student rep which we still don't have right now right we still don't have one okay but we were speaking on um the opportunity to have the student body later on elect their representative we're talking about having each High School have a representative sit with the staff uh with the administrative staff um at the board meetings and giving them a an opportunity to represent the student body and have our board member student board member take the messages that they need to take from us to the student body the other project that we really excited to be working on and we're hope to be able to roll it out some sometime January February of 20125 is a Trenton Board of Education Citizens Academy where we will have a thre Monon training 12 weeks of um three hours and we are opening it up of course to all all parents and stakeholders there will be a limited number of seats available and we will be educating the public on how the budget process works on how it is that uh we are governed by Statute in as far as special education in as far as HIV we are hoping to be able to go to the Department of Education they don't know this yet but they will they will hear from us so they can speak to our parents and and answer certain any questions that they may have we want to talk about the high schools the small learning everything that we do actually um also the responsibilities of a board member and hopefully um from that one of the one of our goals is that when the Board of Elections opens up the the roles for people who are interested in becoming board members they will have received some kind of training from the academy um this is just something that now uh we talked about and superintendent and James R are creating the modules for and um so we are hoping that this will also help us to communicate with our citizens in a more transparent and A Better Way um I don't know superintendent had anything to add to that now I was going to uh just going to say I think you expressed it well it's just an opportunity for us to share like the operation of the district and some of the facets departments potentially how committees work how we operate during a board meeting so that it's not mysterious in any way and I I know that many of you know but um we're Guided by r rules and procedures and state code and different things like that so it's an opportunity for the public us to educate uh some of our citizens who can then uh certainly turn key that information out in the public to say now this is actually how it works and Reporting uh and information that we can and cannot share so looking forward to it it gives us a great connection to the community yes and something else that we will be rolling out soon is we will be highlighting alumni uh recent alumni to show case how they have graduated from the district and gone on to college to graduate with their Bachelors with their masters some with their doctorate and show where they are right now because people need to know that Trenton Public Schools also produces great citizens and that they are doing great things in their lives and for the betterment of the lives of others um we know that there have been many things that have not been done at the best of our abilities but we also know that there's always that group that strives for excellence in as far as the teachers and the students are concerned and that we really need to also highlight that we cannot just listen to all the negativity when we look for positivity we will absolutely find it so um I am looking forward to to um hearing from students that are doing really great things and we want to share that with the public having said that if there are no questions for any of the committee board members I will go on to public participation okay then before we go continue with public participation I will read the advisory for all the Trenton Public School District welcomes the attendance and comments from all members of the public at its meetings this public comment period is your time to be heard on any school or School District issue that a member of the the public may feel is of concern to the residents of the school district each person who signed up to comment will have five minutes you will be notified when you have one minute left and when your five minutes are up you cannot yield your time to another person when it is your turn to speak please address all your comments to the board president please conduct yourself in a respectful and courteous manner for anyone whose comments or actions either harass intimidate or threaten the safety of any person we will provide you with a warning or immediately end your common time also if you curse use vulgar language or make personal attacks we will provide you again with a warning or end your comment time comments that adhere to these guidelines will not be interrupted if you have any questions please ask your questions during your F minute comment period after the public period is closed the board will the board the superintendent or designate will address your questions to the extent provided by the law we also ask that members of the public not interrupt the speaker during their public comment time at this time we will ask the first person that will be participating uh Miss Deborah Marshall Deborah Marshall um sorry on the side there's a button if you can press it right on the okay I got oh perfect thank you all right um I came to speak to the board because I really uh don't feel that I made my point with the principle of Jefferson School um they have uh policies of where all of the children should wear uniforms I don't have a problem with that but I had open heart surgery in March so I was on temporary disability until today and it was really a matter of am I going to BU buy clothes she can wear to school and home or am I just going to buy uniforms and I chose school and home because that was affordable for me and I spoke to the principal about it but the problem for me was not the uniform it was that my granddaughter was being penalized for not wearing it she wanted to sign up for rowing and I think it was a program that came from ruggers if I'm not mistaken so okay okay so she was really disappointed because she couldn't sign up because she wasn't wearing a uniform so when I spoke to the principal about it she was explaining to me that it was an expectation and I said well it can't possibly be an expectation because an expectation is something that you want to happen you're expecting it to happen and children don't purchase their own clothing I don't know a single 10 year-old who has aob J and can go buy their own clothes so I don't feel as though they should be penalized and it wasn't just my granddaughter because I saw other children in the school who didn't have uniforms so we went around in circles for a minute and I chose to disengage because we weren't getting anywhere and I thought I would just bring it to the board because I consider it a form of bullying if you're constantly telling a child know you can't do this can't participate in that uh because you're not wearing your uniform and you're not communicating with with the parent or whomever is the guardian and taking care of that child it's a problem you should be speaking to me because my granddaughter doesn't purchase her clothing and I purchased her clothing I explained the situation to her they were having um I want to call it a fun day but something that they were doing that the children were participating in and she wasn't able to participate and I just thought that was not something that they should be enforcing at the school simply because a child doesn't have uniform she has uniforms now but as far as I'm concerned for them to have this as a policy at the school and penalizing kids because they're not wearing them and like I said she's not the she wasn't the only one um it's it shot her self-esteem down it made her feel like she had done something wrong and she hadn't and for some reason in my point of view the adults are trying to treat the children as as adults they're not adults you can't have something that you expect these children to do as an expectation and the children have no control over that she can control her behavior she can control her participation in class she can control her organization in class she can control the walking in line while she's in school going to wherever they're going but she can't control what she wears and that was just my point that I wanted to bring to the board and have some men one maybe address this this issue thank you thank you next we have wemar good evening my name is W commit active for long time the reason tonight I came in in front of you because I'm tired this bullying going on in schools it's enough be we become a complaint many times nothing been done we ask you many times we need more Security in school school still the same I was in a meeting Saturday and there and I heard from own students in the school they did a survey 4 4% of the students did not feel safe in the school even they say security guards let the kids fight inside the school for 10 minutes and you guys want to got the report cuz I heard you you was there and tonight I'm going ask you Mr ER I want you to step down your position cuz you're not doing your job I ask for resignation because you're not doing your job you're supposed to be doing because there nothing new in Trenton for example you have mran right here two years ago her daughter been bullying and last month I was in watera with this young girl suicidal got suicided because she was buling and she reported many times to the board it was nothing being done you guys need to take action with this we no more one more kids get killed we don't we don't want more kids coming to school not feel safe even I was listening the whole meeting and the students say the students not us as a parents the students say and and and Survey they bring guns to the school they br knives to the school security L them out they live back in with guns and stuff and you guys not do nothing about it what you guys going to wait for tragedy and this going to happen yeah we going to do a policy when and don't tell me you don't have no money because I know you guys have over $500 million next year budget for hire more security guards we need more Security in the schools because this is ridiculous I don't live in Trenton but I don't care with the kids in Trenton I care you know how many parents call me they say my daughter been bullying it's nothing to be done I go to the school board I I go to the to the principal nothing been report but Lord they have to report these bullings and may ask the board take consideration to to my to my request because if he's not doing his job you should let it go hire somebody else who want really wants to work in Trenton thank you have a good thank you next Alfredo pain Alfredo pay Alexis r lift pain Alexis Ratliff pain Miss Laura laa MOA good evening Trenton Board directors and superintendent my name is Laura Mora Le and I live 52 school districts have legal obligation to protect the students from bullying and to address the issue when it occurs in the past some teachers and administrators might have considered it normal part in of childhoods or even a right of passage however EST State LS now required that school address these issues USA Department of Education and justice Abuse and Mental Health Services administration of department and Health Services I going to skip little of my speaking because I read it that because I think it's very important as a community advocate I have received many complaints from parents about bullying their childrens and no response from the authorities at the school where the harassment occurs their frustration and concerns that no one helps the them either a school or board offices make makes them gave up it is unfortunately to have to take a young people to court and their fre fingerprints are on record for the rest of their lives life because the harassment was not addressed in time it's very unfortunate to see two families destroyed by Suicide this year by the harassment of their childrens it is unfortunate to see young people will suffer the rest of their lives with health issues it is unfortunate we have to turn to New Jersey State education departments because Trenton Board education office has not help harass me it is UN forun to know that millions of money are spent on security and there is no results harassment drugs weapons Trends beatings persist in our schools and outside them too is regretable that there are not positive results in the administrative management with all these problems last year I gave some ideas implment en Force uniforms other way why why the law is there or the rule for what metal detectors hadline for those students victims of bullying or other concerns eliminate s and cell phones and the schools now I ask you keep the kids busy more programs to put the kids cream in their future keep them busy have people to specialze in bullying to deal with cases immediately not send home students who are bullies but give seminars on the consequences of bullying to them and their parents training the teachers that are part of the system too follow up parents and students that are victims of bullying every week I know the superintendent doesn't like the idea of metal detectors he expressed once that schools were not PRS to put detectors I tell you Mr superintendent today is very necessary for security airports courts police departments government office Etc half detectors I know that implementing changes cause more money but those measures are necessary for safety of our kids it is very unfortunate to have to resort to so much security in schools where we were thought that schools are a sanctuary that we have to respect and teaching today are other times where technology has also proved to be a destructive tool in in the mind of the humans we cannot think that young people will change their behavior today it might it might change when it is too late and that cannot continue to happen in Trenton school systems as I did before and I am doing now please call all the school parents and students across Tron to have a hard conversation about the policies of bullying it is so many students that are broken down over several years because toxic Behavior was allow to Fester thank you thank you next jarang hi uh my name is jisa ran and um I mostly have questions to say good afternoon everybody um how many of you were bullying because you were black back then when you were a student when you couldn't defend yourself either when you were because you were Spanish white or either you had a disability or you were tall short you were fat you were skinny how many of of you were bullying and this is a direct question because a lot of kids are going through that right now Spanish with Spanish are are fighting black against black against black I don't know how many white students the TR District hasing many but how many of those white students are being bullied when are you going to start doing something superintendent you have the force to make the administration do their job follow the law so no more children can be frightened of going to school attack harass nobody can nobody can defend them some sometimes parents have to work but they spend a lot of time at in the school I mean when are you going to start doing something you have your hands tight you can do something it's an a shame that a girl committed suicidal and it's not because I don't know her whole story but I don't think she was crazy she was bullying she was attacked so many times and she had to defend herself so is that fair that she she's shut permanently she cannot be she canot defend herself obviously there were a lot of things that could have been done not only on your side outside the school as well that we're here fighting so you can do something um something about it where else can we go or we just going to stay here and shut our mouth and just wait to see how many videos do they upload harassing the children the students that's not fair there's videos that waldemar told me about it that I don't even want to see it when there's where there's kids with disability especially autism syndrome Down syndrome down however you said that they're being bully you can laugh I mean you can smile I'm pretty sure you were bully bully when you were little but it's time to do something um how many fights bullying complaints are properly filed and how many are thrown under the rock when you are going to start make making the parents of the bullies accountable for what their uh son or daughter are doing somebody has to be accountable and it's great that you bring students here and you know like the lady well she's not a student but um the lady she's so into uh the ESL and that's that is great that is fantastic that they have that team to help the students the eso students and who else are you going to hire to do the bullying stuff to take care of the bullying if the people that's in the administration is not working why not changing them or making them to do the stuff and my daughter signed signning to speak today but she's um she couldn't make it make it she's she has a lot of homework um greatly she's doing I mean she's doing great she's been doing a lot and bullying is just in her past and that's what I want to see with a lot of kids not coming suicidal not H not even having the thoughts to do that but as my daughter is going up in her future she has a lot of dreams and she's making them a reality this is what I want to see but not all parents can do it and it's very tough let me tell you this cuz my daughter was bullying after a year she was attacked and we have proof of that it it is very tough but just do something for the kids for the students I don't think your children are in the school district if they are then hopefully they they're fine I'm pretty sure they're fine your time is up thank you thank you Miss Kar Karine Grooms good evening everyone and happy new school year to those uh board member candidates who were up for reelection and are hos congratulations so happy New Year year um my name is kin Grooms and I'm doing double duty tonight I'm here representing myself as a non attorney Advocate and as the first vice president and education chair of the trend branch of the NAACP tonight I'm before you to address the anti-bullying Bill of Rights law with regards to parents Guardians and student rights and the responsibilities at the school level Central employee level Meeting those emplo employees that work here in this building and your role as members of this board as members of this board you are aware that you have a dual role which includes but doesn't ex which includes representing the needs of students the concerns of citizens setting the policies goals and objectives for the district and holding the superintendent responsible for implementing those said policies students parents and Comm community members have come before this board on service occasion occasions last year actually me for years seeking help with regards to their children being bullied and harassed with some injuries even with injuries resulting in serious bodily injury unfortunately their needs and concerns have not been represented well to clarify this district has failed to update the policy on the district's website as was as was mandated in 2022 the policy in your website on the web the district website is dated 2011 however if you go on the state's website every mandated is every mandate is met which indicates disrespect for your citizens and the students and parents because they have not been updated since 2011 number two each School anti-bullying specialist are not listed consistently on every school's website as mandated shout out to those schools that have very ref few parents nor students have been provided with an anti-bullying policy each year as mandated they have not been included in this process and that is in accordance with njsa 18a 3715 b11 certainly they were not um provided out of the policy last last school year number four the school district has failed to primally post the link to the policy on the school district's website as mandated so that parents so that parents students and citizens understand their rights tonight I am for the record reviewing the 10 steps of the heill complaints and the investigation process these steps can be found in njsa 188 3715 on ab and also the guidelines for parents step one the report all reports for hi act must be reported to the principal the same day the incident occurs when a staff member a contractor a volunteer that means Anybody Everybody L doy that works at that school okay who P personally witnesses an active hi receives a reliable report indicating harassment intimidation and Bully bullying has occurred parents students and others also can make verbal reports or it can be written on the hi 33a form step two is parent notification as soon as possible following any ver verbal report or written to the principal the principal must inform the parents of all suspected students offenders and suspected student victims depending on the school procedure and the facts of each incident the principal might inform the parent by phone letter or some other form of communication if it is appropriate to the situation the principal may discuss the availability of counseling and other intervention services step three is the investigation one school I'm sorry you have 30 seconds left okay so there's an investigation that must be a written report within 10 days of the verbal report there's a um there's the uh an action which this um if a report is made the superintendent must come before the board and provide services and step um eight is to inform the parents and step nine if a parent comes to you over and over again and tell you that their child is being bullied that they have gone through all the steps there's an appeal process and you after receiving that information the board must have a hearing sorry you with those let me finish this you are expected to have a hearing with those parents and and and expect a decision so if not not I have no other choice but to seek belief by filing a federal and civil complaint if that goes on this year and I'm thinking as a non- attorney thank you thank you next Jose Rodriguez good evening board um I am your neighbor right next door I'm the Director of Education my father is this the senior pastor I want to thank some of the board members who came out Saturday for the qualitative study that was done with the focus group um I wanted to talk about bullying obviously but while we were at the ninth grade academy doing this study a student was assaulted his phone was taken and placed in a room with us strangers bullying is a reality that uh is happening in our in our schools sadly um Even in our church we have seen bullying happen in our CH church not just in the school district bullying impacts kids uh social emotional mental health as you already know I don't have to tell any of you this I'm not here to point fingers I'm here to say that I'm willing to work and do whatever it takes to fight to stop bullying to help our our students and our kids achieve what they're supposed to do and compete and be able to compete compete globally um one of the main concerns in that study was security and one of the things that I was able to do is just go around with the different school districts to see what they're doing not that I know everything but I just wanted to uh emphasize some of the things that I found there's consistent training for security guards in a lot of the school district uh regular comprehensive training sessions on emergency protocols ensuring that all guards receive consistent updates on best practices and are equipped to handle various security system one of the students said I don't know how accurate this is that there are six security guards in a school with almost 600 students so insufficient guards per student ratio is very important and so I would suggest evaluate the curtain guard to student ratio and increase staff to ensure adequate coverage allocate guard strategically across each school to maximize visibility and response time when we were there at the school the students reported that there were a lot of uh blind spots that the cameras don't pick up and a lot of things happen the students know that and a lot of things happen in those areas concerns with reporting a ret retaliation establish a clear and safe Anonymous reporting channel for students and staff to report incidents without fear of retaliation um some parents uh that have approached me and said that they feel that either their concerns fall on death ears or that their child is retaliated on by the students that they're reporting a need for a d a dedicated school safety officer and I'm aware that you guys do have safety uh school safety officers one of the things that I found interesting was yander P Yonder pouches for cell phones in the Middle School these these pouches don't allow students to record or use their phones while in school um also establish a confidential hotline where parents or students can report uh which is some of the things that I saw that other schools are doing uh next month is anti bullying the national uh anti-bullying prevention month and I'm proud to announce that our church we announcing a an anti-bullying campaign the Jericho Project it's an anti-bullying and suici suicide prevention campaign we're here to help we're here to uh help our community to be our Brother's Keeper I think that uh the concern that was brought up here today is obvious I know that we might not have thew now but we can certainly do it together and so I thank you for your time thank you very much and CIA Duncan good evening I was really not going to speak tonight but I want to just clear up some things from the Pres presentation that was given earlier um board members have opportunities to ask questions but we cannot from the audience so it was stated that DLI was voluntary I want to know who is voluntary for the parents the students or the teachers because as I stated last year several times at this mic as well as in meetings with the superintendent as well as with Y and Joanne most teachers are reporting to the association that our Hispanic parents are not aware that their students are in the DLI program they don't understand what the program is some of them want the traditional bilingual program that was previously offered furthermore Joanne said that parents can opt out of it by giving a Rewritten statement some parents don't understand what they are agreeing to nor are they capable of putting their disagreement of the program in writing DLI is one of the models that the state approves it is not the only model teachers are now responsible for 42 to 5 students as opposed to the 21 to 25 students with no further prep time nor compensation when I bought it up last year what was offered was 10 additional hours for the entire year for a prep to prepare an English world and a Spanish world their counterparts Jed teachers sped teachers or traditional bilingual teachers have to do half of the work that they're required to do in the DLI program teachers are burnt out and are actively looking for opportunities outside of the district to districts that do not employ this model now when we had PD Day last year and the year before I asked if Joanne and the bilingual department will meet with some teachers to get some feedback from the teachers that are actively doing this this program working the program as well as speaking with the superintendent I will say when the superintendant was present most of the feedback was greeted with more than a brush off when the superintendent was not present it was basically like this is not a right session we want to focus on the grows and not your complaints and so because of this I implore you board members to do your own research or when you are in the buildings go talk to some of the teachers that are in these situations that are unhappy because unbeknown to me unless that departmentment has some data that I'm not privy to teachers are still complaining we're calling my phone over the summer have been calling my phone since school started some teachers are out on medical lead because of high blood pressure and anxiety that they are experienced from being forced to work in this program when they have mentioned to their principles and to the supervisors that they are not comfortable they do not have the skill set to work in this program teachers are being bombarded with DLI research but have not been given meaningful PD and co- teaching methods so when I was a general ed teacher I had an inclusion teacher that inclusion teacher happened to be Miss Oliver at the time when I was still in the classroom we had meaningful PD where we would go together so that we would learn resources and strategies and skills so that we could deliver education to our students in the most meaningful way and to ensure that we had the skill set to do so it was stated that many teachers are begging for the shelter instruction Etc but I'm going to tell you they're begging for that instruction because as we all know our district is over 60 to 65% Hispanic it is not because that department is so great it is because the reality is most of our students in our gen Ed classes special ed classes are Spanish speaking students and whether we know it or not or we know it whether we want to admit it or not Genet teachers are tasked with educating multilingual students every day whether they have the resource sources or not it is because they want to do their due diligence and be good teachers to provide their services to the students that are placed in front of them so I'm imploring you to go speak to the people that are actually delivering the instruction that are working in those programs to get real data on what is going on what they are feeling and if this is the model we are going to continue to use that we provide the resources the stiens that either Austin or Larry asked about so that we can do it effectively have a great night [Applause] and that closes the public comment period of this board meeting at this time I'm opening the table up to the members for discussion on um the consent agenda if there is no discussion we will go on to um I'll ask for motion to approve it and I have one question so the one of the Amendments was to remove RT from the agenda right that was uh we're pulling it for the moment for f investigation okay I just want to be clear thanks yes any other questions on the consent agenda we have a motion to approve so move second Yanda Lopez yes Gerald truart Jean buoy yes Denise Johnson I I apologize is this where we're voting for the um like the financial recommendations okay so I have to recuse myself from the finance recommendations involving the Department of Children and Families under miscellaneous DDE the letters but for everything else I say yes okay Austin Edward yes jeie weand recusing myself from all things related to Grant school and yes Eddie Daniels Lane yes Sasa man absent Larry trailer yes motion passed with amendments bu there being no new business at this time I will read um I will motion to go into executive session but before doing so I will read our resolution whereas the open public meetings act codified as njsa paragraph 10 colon 4-6 permits the exclusion of the public from a meeting under certain circumstances and whereas the Trenton Board of Education is the opinion that such CC ances presently exist indicated as follows any material considered confidential by federal law state statute or Court rule any pending or anticipated litigation or contract negotiations to which the board is or may become a party to and any matter falling within the attorney client privilege to the extent that that confidentiality is required to preserve said attorney client relationship and allow the attorney to exercise his or her ethical duties as a lawy La under the matters captioned as settlement agreement case number c-20 223 d162 and in as far as superintendent goals for the district 2024 2025 school year now therefore be a resolved by the Trenton Board of Education County of Mercer state of New Jersey that an executive session will be held on September 2 3 2024 for the statuto permissible purposes indicated in this resolution be it further resolved that action may be taken by the board when it reconvenes an open session be it finally resolved that the minutes of the executive session with regard to the above subject matters shall be disclosed to the public at a later date and to the extent that the same is not prejudicial to the interests of the parties involved no longer adverse to the public interest or does not endanger any IND ual's right to privacy may I have a motion to adjourn into um so Ganda Lopez yes Gerald truart Jean buoy yes Denise Johnson Austin Edwards yes Jeanie weam yes Addie Daniels Lane yes SAS absent Larry trer yes to exective Prof you e than [Music] e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e yes e okay this this transon Board of Education meeting reconvenes May I please have a motion to for for on settlement agreement case number co20 23162 so moved second roll call Yolanda Lopez yes Jo truart yes Jean Buie yes Denise Johnson yestin yes yesie Daniel Lane Sasa man absent Larry trer yes motion passed and that concludes this meeting May I have a motion to second adjourn thank you I all in favor all in favor bye all OPP post all post okay